


Poetry in Motion

by NairobiWonders



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Correspondence, F/M, Joanlock - Freeform, Poems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 21:05:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4850528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NairobiWonders/pseuds/NairobiWonders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was inspired by a tumblr conversation with amindamazed re the line from the season four premiere trailer "if you'd like, we could write letters." I somehow veered off from that comment and ended up here. Joanlock fluff.</p>
<p>The fic contains poetry which is most obviously not mine and each is credited with the author's name. The last poem is by Lord Byron.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poetry in Motion

An ivory, Monarch-sized envelope arrived in the morning's mail. Her name and address, printed in Arial 12 pt. on an Avery 5610 label, sat perfectly centered on its front. No return address. The markings over the flag-imaged "forever" stamp affixed in the upper right hand corner provided the only new information to be gleaned from this latest correspondence: the envelope had been placed in the mail in midtown Manhattan yesterday morning. 

Joan dug into her purse, pulling out a pair of latex gloves. The first of these anonymous letters arrived over a year ago, a month or so after she had returned to the brownstone. Since then, four others had arrived, all identical, meticulous in their anonymity. 

She had had the NYPD lab perform a thorough analysis and they found nothing - no DNA, no stray dust, dirt, hair, fingerprints, not a shred of anything personal or identifiable. Joan tried tracing the stationary, tracking the letters' points of origin - each different but all within the city - to no avail. Determining the letters no threat to her safety, Sherlock refused to help with the investigation.

After the third such letter, she gave up on tracking the physical elements and concentrated on the contents. Her first thought was Moriarty. The woman was fond of mind games and had a history of taunting Joan. Sherlock pointed out that Moriarty's ego would by now have outed her as the originator of these letters. He had a point, she thought. 

Joan reached for the letter opener and carefully made her incision into this newest offering. Folded in half, the ivory sheet was the same as its predecessors. She unfolded it, confirmed the font and point of the laser printed text, and then allowed herself to indulge in the poem her secret admirer had selected for her this time:

> Here I love you.  
>  In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.  
>  The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.  
>  Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.
> 
> The snow unfurls in dancing figures.  
>  A silver gull slips down from the west.  
>  Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.  
>  Oh the black cross of a ship.  
>  Alone.
> 
> Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.  
>  Far away the sea sounds and resounds.  
>  This is a port.
> 
> Here I love you.  
>  Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.  
>  I love you still among these cold things.  
>  Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels  
>  that cross the sea towards no arrival.  
>  I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.
> 
> The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.  
>  My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.  
>  I love what I do not have. You are so far.  
>  My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.  
>  But night comes and starts to sing to me.
> 
> The moon turns its clockwork dream.  
>  The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.  
>  And as I love you, the pines in the wind  
>  want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.  
>  ~ Pablo Neruda, Here I Love You

Joan sighed and blinked away the mist that hazed her vision. Whoever this person was, they were a hopeless romantic. Each poem sent, rather than fill her with dread or threat, left her with a secure warmth, like strong arms wrapped around her, keeping the cold at bay. Sometimes she thought she could almost hear the voice of the sender.

"Got another one did you?" Sherlock's clipped tone startled her out of her dream filled cocoon. 

"Yes." She extended the letter towards him to read and he waved it off. 

"No need. The missives of your lovelorn suitor are of no interest to me at the moment. I have spores to analyze." He excitedly pointed to a small case of slides in his hand and strolled past her towards the stairs. 

She shook her head at his back, not a romantic cell in his body. She carefully folded the letter and as she did she thought she got a whiff of something, a scent ... vague, subtle but definitely there ... Joan brought the page closer but could not pinpoint the fragrance. Almost identifiable it taunted her, staying just outside her reach. She re-sealed the envelope carefully and placed it by her purse. Perhaps the Nose could be of assistance. 

***

Sherlock, as she expected, had commandeered the kitchen table for his work. The microscope sat before him, surrounded by scads of glass slides and pages full of scribbles. Joan poured herself a glass of water. 

"Ah hah!" Sherlock excitedly looked up from the microscope to her. "This is the proof for which we have been searching!" He looked so excited at his discovery, she had to smile.

"The Stanton case?" Joan walked over and stood behind his chair.

"Yes, yes! Have a look."

She put down her glass and bent over and around him. ... And there it was. She inhaled near him twice more to make sure.

"Watson? Are you smelling me?" He grimaced at her, perplexed. 

"Beeswax?" She stated more than asked.

"Of course, beeswax. We have hives, do we not? I tend them, ergo beeswax." His tone was veering towards the annoyed. "The slide, Watson, the slide! Clear proof that Mr. Stanton visited the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens before his demise."

She stared at him not listening to a word he said.

"Nevermind," an exasperated Sherlock moved the microscope back towards him, "you obviously have no interest in this case."

Joan snapped to attention, "No, no, I do." She waited for him to explain.

"These spores from the deceased's shirt sleeve are from a rare Amazonian fern, found only at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and nowhere else in the eastern U.S."

"Ah," Joan pretended to listen as she watched her partner with new eyes.

He droned on for a while longer until he realized her attention was elsewhere. "Watson! Is there a problem? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine ... Fine. I just remembered something I need to do." She excused herself and left him staring after her.

He sat trying to decipher the look on her face, the beeswax comment, her sudden need to leave when clearly they had a break in the case. 

.... Perhaps the letter had upset her. Although, she didn't seem upset just ... he thought about the way she'd looked at him and thought perhaps she'd discovered ... No ...no. He quickly dispelled the thought. There was no chance... No chance at all. 

Sherlock forced her face out of his mind's eye and attempted to turn his attention back to the concrete, to the work at hand.

***  
Joan took the carved wooden box from where it nestled in her dresser drawer. The letters were neatly stacked and tied with a slim light green cord - to protect the evidence she'd told herself, but perhaps she had known all along. She read each one again; poems by Breton, Dyer, Yeats, Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 ... My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun ... the backhanded statement of ardor ... How did she not see it before now? 

*****

Once a week, Sherlock checked his Bronx post office box. Moriarty had long stopped sending her correspondence here, but he had other confidential sources and irregulars who contacted him through this address. 

Among his other mail, an ivory Monarch-size envelope caught his eye. He stopped breathing. A flurry of images and conversations from the past few days cascaded about him. What had he done? He'd been discovered. She knew the truth somehow. It had been foolish of him to start this charade and more so, against his better judgment, to continue. The need to communicate the emotions that consumed him, the inane and childish longing for her approval, the adolescent need for her ... Idiot! He exhaled and prepared himself for her chastisement and no doubt repulsion at his gross transgressions. 

Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut, remembering the lines of the Neruda poem. Every word had resonated with his stupid uncontrollable heart and he had placed it all at her feet. Anonymity had made him brave and hubris foolish. He hoped she would have mercy and not berate or worse depart ...

No longer able to wait, he tore the envelope open and hastily unfolded the sheet. 

> I think of thee!--my thoughts do twine and bud  
>  About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,  
>  Put out broad leaves, and soon there's nought to see  
>  Except the straggling green which hides the wood.  
>  Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood  
>  I will not have my thoughts instead of thee  
>  Who art dearer, better! Rather, instantly  
>  Renew thy presence; as a strong tree should,  
>  Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,  
>  And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee  
>  Drop heavily down,--burst, shattered, everywhere!  
>  Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee  
>  And breathe within thy shadow a new air,  
>  I do not think of thee--I am too near thee.  
>  _Sonnet XXIX: I Think Of Thee_  
>  ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Sherlock swallowed hard and blinked. He re-read the words. A light flush crawled up his neck. He folded the letter and placed it in his inside jacket pocket and in so doing caught the scent of beeswax. .... Beeswax! Of course, beeswax. How apt. He closed his eyes and shook his head. He was indeed a most fortunate man to have found his equal ... no, his superior in many ways.

***

Darkness fell and he was not yet home. A nervous Joan sat in his chair, staring into the fire, wondering if she had done the right thing by sending him the poem. The adult thing would have been to talk, to tell him she returned his feelings many times over. She heard the scrape of the front door opening. Her stomach flip flopped. 

Sherlock walked into the room and stared at her, his hands fidgeted at his sides. Joan stood up and walked towards him.

"I'm sorry." His voice was soft and sincere. "I should never had sent the first letter but I was overjoyed to have you back under our roof and I found no way of properly expressing that happiness to you. How much I cared .... Breakfast trays have their expressive limits. And so I sent the first and then the second." He paused and looked away taking a breath before continuing. "After my relapse, my feelings only deepened and I sent the third, fourth, ... fifth..." His voice guiltily trailed off. Sherlock looked up at her. "I know it was cowardly, and I hope you can forgive me. Every word in every letter was and is heartfelt..... you are wondrous and I ... I ... " he closed his eyes, hands rigid at his sides, as the words he'd been trying to say finally spilled out, "I love you." 

He felt her arms wrap around his waist and he opened his eyes to her staring up at him, her eyes gleaming with affection only for him. 

She smiled at him. "You are such a dope." His body stiffened in her arms, unsure if this was jest or rejection. She tightened her hold, "I love you. How could you ever think otherwise."

He squirmed, "Well, for starters, calling me a dope, makes me think you might not ..." 

Joan reached up and kissed him lightly on the lips, "I love you and have loved you and will love you for a very long time."

He brought his hand to her face, tracing her lips with his thumb, overcome with emotion at her words. Slowly, timidly almost, he brushed his lips to hers. Her welcoming response spurred them forward into a more passionate kiss, lips lingered over lips, parted and rejoined once more. 

For need of air they stopped; he pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. "I had one more poem to send you," he whispered.

"Mmm, may I hear it," she pressed her ear onto his vested chest. "Please."

His voice rumbled low and soft ....

> She walks in Beauty, like the night  
>  Of cloudless climes and starry skies;  
>  And all that's best of dark and bright  
>  Meet in her aspect and her eyes:  
>  Thus mellowed to that tender light  
>  Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
> 
> One shade the more, one ray the less,  
>  Had half impaired the nameless grace  
>  Which waves in every raven tress,  
>  Or softly lightens o'er her face;  
>  Where thoughts serenely sweet express,  
>  How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
> 
> And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,  
>  So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,  
>  The smiles that win, the tints that glow,  
>  But tell of days in goodness spent,  
>  A mind at peace with all below,  
>  A heart whose love is innocent.

"Thank you. That was beautiful." She murmured. 

"No more so than you." He whispered and the rest of their evening blurred.


End file.
